


More Than the Average Good

by royal_chandler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:44:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_chandler/pseuds/royal_chandler
Summary: Tony hadn't taken flight in nearly five months before Steve Rogers—plunged into the Potomac—finally gave him a reason to.





	More Than the Average Good

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegraytigress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/gifts).



> I cannot give a big enough thank you to my amazing beta, [FestiveFerret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret)! Thank you for the hand-holding, the cheerleading, the sound-boarding, the advice, and the beta read! Thank you for being there when this fic inflated beyond what I originally planned. Most especially, thank you for meeting my special brand of mess with the utmost grace and inspiration. This fic would be a sad state of affairs without you ♥️
> 
> Any and all mistakes rest solely on me. They're probably compiled wherever science is mentioned.
> 
> thegraytigress, I hope that you enjoy this! I had a great time writing your prompt!

“Sir, I’ve managed to locate Captain Rogers,” JARVIS says, nearly four hours after Rogers has gone off Tony’s grid. Tony is trying not to acknowledge exactly how impressive that is. His workstation still has the black and white image of Rogers’ face hidden under the bill of a baseball cap pulled low, caught in the act of pilfering his Smithsonian owned uniform. 

“Still nothing on Romanoff?” Tony asks as he checks out the blue light panel running the facial recognition software, seemingly endless in its search and never lingering on a thumbnail for longer than two seconds.

“We have to continue under the assumption that Agent Romanoff is in close proximity to Captain Rogers. Unfortunately, she is not coming up on any systems,” JARVIS answers.

“We’ll keep at it,” Tony says. He scrubs the heels of his hands into his eyes because they’ve been at this for a stretch of days that feels like forever, and whatever’s going down in Washington isn’t kosher, and dear _god_ why can’t Rogers just stay in one place? He sighs expel a bit of his frustration, unwrap it from his next words. “Alright, J. What’s the location you have on Rogers?”

“As of fourteen minutes ago, SHIELD helicarriers were activated to launch.”

Satellite footage pops up before Tony’s eyes and shows the ships hovering almost three-thousand feet in the sky just outside of the Triskelion, cannons engaged. 

“What the hell is going on? JARVIS, give me the A/V feed,” Tony says, because he isn’t the trusting sort and his tech hasn’t gone unchecked in six years.

The video is stamped as chamber three of the lower deck, and there’s Rogers in his original uniform that Tony knows is lacking any protection actually worthwhile—he’s seen the specs and his father’s notes—going hand-to-hand with the guy from the CCTV footage that Tony can’t find anything on but somehow instinctively knows is an actual threat to Steve Rogers. The unidentified individual doesn’t miss a beat. The audio is composed with the dense sound of their hits and their punched-out grunts. After a slide down the slope of a scaffold and the chase after a flat object Tony can’t discern in the feed, Rogers makes an order, repeats it, and, when it’s not followed, bone snaps, a sharp and quick crack.

“Jesus,” Tony breathes. Despite his poking and prodding at Rogers at the start of everything, despite feeling the need to worm under his skin, he knows that Rogers isn’t the perfect boy scout. He’s a soldier. Tony knows this, but to see his desperation so visceral and animal is something else entirely.

A fury of alerts and banners flash across the screen, automatically shrinking the video to the side as new information comes in. Tony reads through headlines from various news outlets that there’s been a lockdown and subsequent leak at SHIELD. His eyes keep catching on an acronym that’s been dead for decades littered throughout. He swipes to another alert and sees that the backdoor he left on the helicarriers when installing the repulsors has been triggered. Tony is just about to ask JARVIS to give him a rundown, because that’s a high-level threat detection, but he’s cut off by a shot that rings out and is so present and loud from the workshop’s audio system that Tony actually flinches. It takes him an unnerving moment to realize that the shot was made hundreds of miles away. That Rogers has been shot.

Tony watches in horror, feels like there’s oil, sick and heavy, in his stomach when a second bullet catches Rogers in the shoulder and knocks him sideways with its impact. He barely catches himself on the base of the catwalk he’s climbing, feet tripping on its ridges.

“Shit. JARVIS,” Tony starts urgently, tapping his wrist and waking up his newest suit, “contact the nearest hospital and tell them that they have Captain America incoming with two GSWs. Send over all of his cleared medical records.”

It’s an hour flight from New York to DC. Tony can cut that time. He’s done it once or twice before by a few minutes, and that was in older versions of the suit. Rogers just has to keep himself breathing until Tony can reach him, and that thought is a _curse_ because, in the next heartbeat, a hit to the back drops Rogers onto the grate of the catwalk, clutching his front and seemingly motionless.

Tony takes flight for the first time in nearly five months and makes the trip in forty minutes.

*

It takes another twenty minutes to find Rogers after they lose the feed from the helicarrier that’s been carved out with cannon fire and had its fiery husk plunged into the Potomac. JARVIS detects Rogers’ heat signature near the riverbank, and Tony has no idea how he got there, but he isn’t about to question a small mercy.

He drops to Rogers’ side, and relief floods him when JARVIS confirms that he’s still alive, reassuring alongside the color in Rogers’ lips and the thready pulse that shivers, a trill in it’s thump-thump rhythm, against the skin of Tony’s fingers. There’s no water in his lungs, JARVIS tells him reassuringly.

“However, his heart rate is low and he is bleeding internally. He has four gunshot wounds. Not three like originally believed. He needs immediate medical attention.” JARVIS concludes when the scan finishes.

Tony nods, covers his hand in the gauntlet once more. He keeps the faceplate flipped up so Rogers can hear his voice, and, for his own peace of mind, he orders JARVIS to de-weaponize the suit, although he’s sure it’s already been done. “Is it safe to move him?”

“Readings show that it should be fine, but there’s no way to know with infallible certainty,” JARVIS comments. “Captain Rogers will have to be moved regardless, Sir. I am afraid that the serum will not work at a fast enough rate to combat his injuries without hasty assistance.”

“Okay, okay. Gotcha.” Tony heeds the warnings but prioritizes caution over speed and is careful as he hefts Rogers’ unconscious, water-sodden weight, and settles him against his chest. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ve got you, Steve. Just hang on for me, huh? I’ve hardly filled my quota for annoying the fuck out of you. Trust me. Still a lot to do.”

Tony takes in the sight of Rogers’ ice-pale complexion, interrupted by the blooms of bruises and cross-stitch of cuts. The thin and reedy air that leaves his mouth is barely audible. “God. Who did this to you?”

*

Sam Wilson introduces himself to Tony with a cup of coffee held out in offering, and Tony immediately likes him.

“Nurse at the front desk told me you were already waiting. I know it’s shit but thought you could use something, you know?”

Tony thanks him and slugs down about half of it, deciding he’s definitely had worse. The coffee is hot and makes him feel human. That’s more than enough at this point.

“How is he?” Sam asks, taking the chair next to Tony’s, setting his elbows on the knees and turning his own coffee between his hands over and over. 

“They took three bullets out of him. He was shot four times but one was a through and through.” Tony pauses, trying not to be sick at the thought. He concentrates on the bitter aftertaste of vending machine variety caffeine. “He woke up while they were working. They accounted for the serum with the anesthesia, but the internal bleeding, it’s—it’s harder to fix than they anticipated. Taking longer. Odds are still good but it’s going to be a while.”

“I’ve got a while,” Sam replies before finally sipping his coffee, but Tony can still pick out the nerves.

Tony considers him, quirks his brow. “Yeah? Your turn then. How the hell did he end up here?”

“Bucky Barnes,” Sam discloses quietly, putting care into the name like it’s a secret. “You ever heard of the Winter Soldier?”

Tony’s brain sifts through what he knows about Barnes, but it’s honestly not that much. Practically everything he knows is what’s already on public record. Everyone who cares knows that Barnes was Rogers’ best friend, that the two grew up thick as thieves in Brooklyn and served together after Rogers received the serum. At one point he had defied orders, liberating Barnes and other prisoners of war from a Hydra base. Over the years, through documentaries and autobiographies, some anecdotes have come out about their friendship: war stories, laughs in the rare lapses of silence between gunfire. Tony even heard a story or two from Peggy. He remembers the sweet curl of her tone, warm and reflective, as she recalled Barnes flirting with her at a bar in London and inevitably failing because she’d only had eyes for Rogers. 

He’s not sure how those two things connect and relays as much to Sam.

“The Winter Soldier is an assassin that works, well worked, for Hydra.” Sam leans in, his eyes serious and voice staying low, no louder than what Tony needs. “He’s been working operations for them since the sixties, and they sent him after Fury when he got too close. Same with Steve.”

“Wait. Hold on. Since the sixties? Is the name a designation then?”

“No, man. It’s the same guy. Kill after kill, it’s been the same guy.”

“Wilson, how is that possible?”

“Super soldier serum,” Sam says simply again, and Tony is beginning to get that’s just the way he is, straight to the point and direct. “Stark, Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier.”

Sam goes on to craft a tale encompassing Rogers’ commitment to saving his brainwashed best friend who he thought was dead. He fills in the holes where Rogers and Romanoff were on the run and reveals that Fury isn’t actually dead. And it’s not to say that Tony isn’t shocked. Of course he _is,_ but it’s the sympathy that comes as more of a surprise. He thinks of the fight on the helicarrier, tries to picture himself in Rogers’ shoes and superimpose Rhodey’s head on the shoulders of Barnes with an empty gaze, and he can’t imagine. 

“Shit,” Tony swears.

*

It’s late, five cups of coffee shared between Tony and Sam, when the surgeon returns and updates them on Steve’s condition. They were able to stop the bleeding and he made it through surgery successfully, but due to the heavy sedation they had to administer in the operating room, Rogers won’t wake up until morning, at the earliest. With a worn smile, she suggests that they rest while Rogers does. 

Tony requests a private room and manages to negotiate that Rogers be allowed two visitors rather than only one because he and Sam aren’t going anywhere except to grab sandwiches from the cafeteria. At Rogers’ bedside, they stretch their legs out and lean back into their chairs, settling in for the rest of the night.

*

Due to Tony’s lack of faith in governing bodies, Steve’s door is flanked by a pair of Stark Industries’ guards, but they’ve got an approved shortlist and Natasha Romanoff is on it. Tony sidles up to her after stepping out of the elevator the next morning and finding her, still dressed in the outfit she’d worn on Capitol Hill. He joins her in watching Steve’s unconscious form through the window. “He doesn’t bite.”

The corner of her mouth comes up in a slash. “I’m curious as to how you know that. Paints a pretty picture if I’m honest.”

Tony laughs, is mildly surprised it doesn’t creak from disuse.

“I saw you on the news earlier. Not too shabby, you facing off against Congress,” Tony says after a moment, nudges her with his shoulder.

“Never thought we’d have that in common.”

“Yeah, I could’ve given you some advice about that had you asked.”

“Eh. You were a tad theatrical for my taste.”

“And leaking every classified secret of a super organization is what exactly?” Tony shakes his head. “God, I always knew that Stern was an asshat though. I think I might save the image of his arrest as the background for my phone.” Tony looks her over. “So how are you? Don’t get much opportunity to catch up when you and Rogers are running around getting shot at by ninety-six-year-old assassins with bad eyeliner.”

“Or when you’re giving out your home address to terrorists,” Natasha supplies and the retort is oddly comforting. “Tony, if we could have been there—”

And there goes the comfort. “You would’ve been,” Tony finishes for her because he can’t bear to hear _her_ say it, have his neuroses try to parse out whether or not she means it. Tony doesn’t know what she and Rogers were up to when the Malibu mansion was getting blown to hell. But it doesn’t matter; they had no obligation to show up and fix his self-inflicted screwups. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Take it from a spy, the worst way to convince someone you’re fine is to say you’re fine. You’re living in New York now,” she states quietly, not like she’s maneuvering around a landmine but rather a graceful glide just over it, like she could walk on water if she were so inclined, “and Pepper’s still in California. I read that she’s spearheading the clean energy initiative there. I am sorry, Tony. I wish that it had worked out for you both.”

“It was the only outcome. Tried to work around it but—” His clears his throat because it suddenly feels like a funnel filled with kerosene, her words burning all the way up to the back of his eyes. “It wasn’t fair to keep putting her through all of that grief and worry, hoist all of my shit on her.”

“That might be true,” she says agreeably. “But no less fair that it would have been for you to give up a part of yourself.” Kindly, she nudges him back. “How did you put it at your congressional hearing? The suit and you are one, to turn over the suit would be to turn over part of yourself?” Whatever she sees in his expression makes her respond with a shrug, sets a friendly gleam in her eyes. “I may have rewatched it on YouTube.”

“You never cease to amaze, Romanoff,” Tony says and it’s fierce, the realization of how much he’s missed her.

“That’s spy tip number two. No more freebies,” she says. She presses a kiss to his cheek, squeezing his shoulder, and juts her chin toward Rogers. “Hey, take care of him for me, will you? He won’t do it himself, and I trust you to keep him safe.”

Tony nods without hesitation because it’s obviously important to her, and for some reason that he can’t quite find the roots of, it’s starting to feel important to him. He’s still here after all, paying for a hotel room he hasn’t slept in and returning only to shower and get back to Rogers. He feels needed here. “And what’s next for you?”

She sniffs a laugh. “I’ve pissed off a lot of people, Tony. It’s best for everyone if I lay low for now.”

Tony stuffs his hands in the pockets of his pants and smiles regretfully. “Anything I can do to help? I think that this is the whole purpose of having a private jet. I can make a quick call for you. Get you to wherever you want to go.”

“I’ve got to sort this out on my own.” Natasha backs away from the window. “I’ll see you soon, I’m sure.” She’s almost gone before she continues with, “Also, don’t let Steve spend every Saturday night listening to big band swing, please. I’m serious, Stark.”

“Next you’ll be telling me his bedtime,” Tony calls out to her. 

Pulling a mournful and pitying face, Natasha puts up a full hand and three fingers of the other before pivoting and disappearing down the corridor. 

*

“Seeing pink elephants?” Tony asks when Rogers rouses from sleep for the third time. It seems like it might stick this go-around. His blue eyes no longer shine like marbles. They look focused and clear from the drugs finally, the brightness more natural. 

“Tony Stark is in my hospital room. The pink elephants would be less surprising,” Steve quips softly. 

“Sam was here earlier. He had to head over to the VA for a little while,” Tony tells him, and it's not unlike an apology. “He’ll be back.”

“I didn’t mean—” Rogers starts, dry and then he swallows. Tony gets up to pour him a cup of water. Rogers takes it with a smile, anemic but better than the alternative. Tony sits and watches Rogers take a few long pulls from the cup. He hands it back to Tony after he’s done, gives his thanks, and Tony sets it on the bedside table. 

“I was just saying I didn’t expect to see you, Tony. I don’t actually mind that you’re here. I’m glad that you’re here.” Under Rogers’ tired eyes, his cheeks are stained a light pink which creeps to his nose. “I, um, I thought they’d been dreams. You saving my life. But they must have been memories.”

“I didn’t draw you from the water, but I found you. JARVIS did the actual calculations, so he should get the majority of the credit,” Tony adds as an afterthought.

“You flew me here. You said you had me. I remember that pretty well,” Rogers counters, visibly pleased.

“Photographic memory,” Tony concedes with a half-hearted grimace.

“Yes,” Rogers says, smile fuller in his win. “So will you shut up and just let me say thank you?”

“Bossy.” Tony waves a hand dismissively. “Party on. I can’t stop you. Do what you will, Cap.”

“Thank you,” Rogers says. With a slight chuckle that rumbles into an amused laugh—and maybe some of the painkillers are still lingering, it’s so unrestrained—he says again, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Rogers,” Tony finds himself saying, and he thinks the sincerity surprises them both.

“Saving my life doesn’t constitute a _Steve_?” His glance up, under the length of his fair-colored lashes, is a see-through search that Tony can’t help fidgeting under.

Tony rolls his eyes. “I’d forgotten how annoying you can be.” 

Steve cocks his head in consideration. He looks like he knows Tony is full of shit. He grins, boyish and frustratingly endearing. “You actually called yourself the annoying one. At the river. And let me tell ya, I am never forgetting that.”

“I’m already regretting this,” Tony replies smartly. “Total recall while high is cheating by the way.”

Rogers— _Steve_ —actually laughs until it hurts, his hand moving to his side and bunching the material of his gown. “Oh! Oh, ow. Bruised ribs, I guess?” Wincing, “That’s fun.”

“Serves you right,” Tony chides. “They’re cracked actually. Two of them. But of course they would only feel bruised to you. The serum is doing its job, and you’re on the mend. The worst of it is pretty much over.”

Steve makes a noise of disagreement, and Tony doesn’t believe it has anything to do with the physical journey he’s been through.

“There haven’t been any sightings of him, Steve,” Tony says, and he doesn’t know how to make it sound like he’s sorry about that, considering how things tend to play out when Steve and Barnes find each other post-big freeze. Tony continues, “I’ve been on it and combing through Natasha’s file dump. There aren’t any leads so far.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be as good at what he does if there were, right?”

“And if—miracle of miracles—you do find him? What then? He nearly killed you.”

“No. No.” Steve shakes his head, and all Tony can see are the bruises that haven’t faded. “If Bucky wanted to kill me, I’d be dead.”

Groaning, Tony remarks, “I truly can’t decipher whether that’s blind loyalty talking or just your gigantic-ass ego. And that’s a reprimand coming from me, Cap.” Decisively, he leans in and meets Steve’s eyes. “I saw the video. Barnes wasn’t pulling any punches. All jokes aside, the only reason you’re alive is because of that serum.”

Steve exhales and his face crumples with the effort, creases into vulnerable lines. It’s somehow worse than the sight of him being shot, his stillness on the silt edge of the river, and his muted and gauzy breaths after surgery. Hands in his lap, Steve’s impossibly small and silent for a long minute before speaking.

“He didn’t remember me,” Steve admits, fragile and bitter. He sounds angry, and from Tony's own experience with self-deprecation—the tone is as familiar as breathing—he knows exactly where that anger is directed. “Everything I tried, everything I said, none of it worked. There’d be glimpses, flashes that left quicker than the came, but nothing stuck.”

“Steve, that’s not on you,” Tony tells him. “You have to understand that.”

“He’s my best friend,” Steve replies meaningfully, as though it amasses everything. “Bucky's alive, Tony, and the guy I knew is still in there. I couldn’t even—I won’t give up on him. I can’t.”

“What you did up there, I have half a mind to call you an absolute idiot,” Tony tells him after tallying a number of beats that add up to an appropriate passage of time. 

“Hardly a new frontier there. What’s the other half say?” Steve asks. 

“Oh, that you’re still an idiot,” Tony says with little heat, “but to a lesser degree because I get it. He’s your best friend. I get that. But know this, Steve. I’m not letting you lay on the wire here.”

Sighing, “Tony, don’t—”

“If he can be reached and if he can be brought back, what good is it with you dead, huh?” Tony challenges. Steve is a brilliant tactician but when the situation is close, personal, he’s ridiculously short-sighted. He’s not looking far enough ahead. “Because that damage is irreversible, Steve. It’d break him completely, so, if not for your own sake, for his, you need to figure out a way to do this without a damn death wish.”

“You’re right.” Steve yields. Reluctantly. There’s a good chance he’ll need more convincing in the near future but Tony’s up to the task. 

Tony hadn’t been aware of the apprehension flickering in his chest but Steve’s agreement douses it with cool relief. 

“And I’ve got the resources so,” Tony says, gestures vaguely, “whatever I can do to make it easier, I’ll do. Just ask.”

Steve pauses considerably with a pinched mouth, like he’s readying himself, like maybe he doesn’t want Tony’s help and he’s piecing together a way to put it politely. “Tony, listen. There’s something that—”

Tony’s phone ringer interrupts whatever spiel Steve has planned, startling them both, and Tony is grateful for the excuse. Tony pulls it out of pocket and reads the number; he apologizes to Steve as he gets to his feet. “Sorry, I gotta take this. We good?”

Steve nods, gives a small smile that still has a touch of sadness. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

*

“This might be me overstepping,” Tony starts before Steve’s signature on the discharge papers has even dried. The door has only just clicked behind the nurse and his clipboard. “Correction. This is definitely me overstepping, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”

Steve laughs, zipping up the duffel Tony brought over for him. “You’re kind of an asshole.”

Tony ignores that because they’re becoming friends, he thinks. Steve now just sounds equal parts amused by and resigned to the universal laws of Tony’s nature. That’s basically the textbook definition of friendship with Tony. 

“Remember that phone call I got the other day?” Tony asks, hopping on the hospital bed since Steve is at peak form once again and won’t be needing it anymore. 

“Yes,” Steve says slowly, regards Tony speculatively. “Why?”

“Well there’s the good news and then there’s news that’s potentially good and potentially bad,” Tony hedges. 

“What’s behind door number one?”

“I found your shield.”

Steve’s expression brightens and god, the sun has some serious competition. “What? Tony! That’s amazing. I thought—jeez. Thought I wouldn’t see it again. Where is it?” Steve asks like he’s itching for the disc to rebound into his hands. 

“It’s safe,” Tony starts, hoping Steve’s face won’t dim when he follows with, “in New York. At the tower.”

“Are you going to send it back here?” Steve asks.

The confusion resting on his brow is one of the better outcomes Tony had predicted so he trucks on, fast. “I mean, if you wanted, I’d fly it here personally, but I’m thinking of it more as an incentive for you to leave DC,” he elaborates. “Look, your old apartment is no good, with the bullet holes and whatnot, and it’s not like you’re still an operative. There’s room, a whole floor, for you at the tower. Totally rent-free, which is great because as previously mentioned, you’re unemployed. Also it’s been beautifully renovated since aliens rained down from the skies. And let’s be real, I’m willing to bet SHIELD didn’t provide you with a private state of the art gym.”

“Well no—”

“It’d be nice for us both, having someone around. By no means do we have to be attached at the hip. Or besties tied by the testes.”

“Cute,” Steve mutters, amused and resigned, snapping on his watch. 

“There will be times where I’ll even forget we share the same residence.” Tony is lying. It’ll be the exact opposite but Steve doesn’t need to know that. Doesn’t need to know how lonely and craving Tony is, how aware Tony is of the mile markers between him and Pepper, the ocean between him and Rhodey. “But what could it hurt? Worst comes to worst and I’m a terrible landlord, you can drop a one-star review on Yelp.”

“Okay.”

“You and I will have have an easier go of putting this search together, as well. Better communication. If we misunderstand each other’s emojis, we can discuss it at breakfast. Not that you’ll ever really find me at breakfast. If you ever do, something is _wro_ —”

“Okay,” Steve says again, touching Tony’s elbow. “I said okay. It’s a good idea, and I miss New York. I want to go back home, Tony.”

*

Odds are, Steve had been referring to the city, but in a short time, he manages to make the tower resemble something like home. After a tour that ends awkwardly in the open space of Steve’s studio— 

_”How long ago did you put this together?” Steve wondered in a whisper, fingers dragging through a layer of dust collected on the easel._

_“Right after Thor beamed up to Asgard and you rode off on a Harley that had seen better days, no biggie,” Tony confessed in the soft light, an artist’s light, that washed through the east window, dappled the hardwood floor in watercolor stains._

—the two of them mesh in a way that makes Tony want to rewind time and scratch-stop at a lightning storm over Germany, pluck out the barbed words. He’d pause and then puncture the bloat of their ego and posturing before explosions rocked them off their feet and a portal cracked open the troposphere. 

He’d not only _think_ to call Steve when he comes across a kid in a Cap shirt or when the baseball season gets interesting but he’d actually do it. Jokingly needle Steve about the Yankees and soothe his bruised Brooklyn sensibilities with seats behind home plate at Citi Field and a Nathan’s hotdog. 

_“Two years, Tony, why didn’t you say anything?” Steve asked in the studio, strained and deep, like he shared the same desire to go back._

Going forward is better though, because, yes, the world still sucks at times, but it’s not on the brink of annihilation. There’s time for them get to know each other. 

Tony learns that while Steve never punched Hitler, that’s pretty much where the propaganda ends because the man lives up to the legend. He knew this before, peripherally, but the picture gains shades and definition. Tony will catch Steve murmuring under his breath with the New York Times app opened on his tablet. He’s seen Steve leave a lengthy and aggrieved response to a bombing in Afghanistan in the comments section and share an article on the rise of homelessness in their backyard to his Twitter. Tony’s watched him pen a letter to a pair of orphans who lost their parents to a house fire in Oregon and send it off with a hand-drawn cartoon of the Avengers. 

_“Least Captain America can do,” he’d said._

_“Captain America’s not the legend. You are,” Tony stressed._

Steve’s not the average type of good. Tony used to believe it was his old-school attitude, missing America’s cynical turn or only having lost his internet virginity a mere two years ago, but that’s barely the tip of it, if truly factors in at all. Simply put, Steve Rogers would be extraordinary, spectacularly out of place, in anywhere and anytime. 

However, extraordinary doesn’t mean perfect, and Tony appreciates that. Relatable isn’t the word that Tony wants to use, it’s so banal, but that’s what it is. Tony couldn’t possibly rival Steve’s goodness but the rest of it? They’re pretty evenly matched. Stubborn, contentious, and unabashed. For all that Tony’s kind of an asshole, Steve is kind of a punk. Tony would bet a tidy sum that very few are privy to this information. History didn’t pass down Steve’s dry humor that will toe the edge of what is typically regarded as off-limits and then stomp all over it in deadpan. Albeit, mostly at his own expense but with every intent to throw the other person off. Cool as you like, Steve had lamented over the popular impression that he can’t take a good ribbing, he’s got Trojan receipts, a dick joke that Tony nearly choked on. 

Steve is always glancing at the motor oil on Tony’s face with a clenched jaw, but, one morning, told social proprietary to fuck off, taking his nasty, sweat-soaked shirt and proceeding to clean Tony’s face with the hem of it. 

Not that he’d needed it—and Steve is purely kinetic even when he’s curbing his speed—but Tony gave him a three-second head start before bolting from the kitchen table and chasing him to the elevator and telling JARVIS to stop it between floors. He’d forgotten about the Triskelion for a whole _stupid_ minute. However, after Tony ordered the elevator back up, Steve had just given him a thumbs up, his _well-played_ almost entirely lost in honking laughter once the doors opened again. 

Tony learns that Steve is forever and infuriatingly polite. 

He still insists on knocking whenever he enters Tony’s workshop. Even though Tony has told him it’s unnecessary more times than he can count. If Tony wants him out, he won’t get in. 

In sweatpants and a t-shirt that doesn’t fit, Steve raps against the glass and, like always, greets DUM-E first, fist-bumping the bot’s arm affectionately. Steve grins at the happy whir he recieves before plopping down on the couch and tucking into what he’s claimed as his corner with his sketchbook, charcoal holder, and whatever candy of the week he’s purchased on a run. Steve claims keeping it in the workshop will stop him from eating too much of the party-sized bag. The strategy hasn’t worked in the three weeks since he’s moved in.

Another lesson: Steve is the guy who’d happily give out to trick-o-treaters on Halloween but definitely keep all the good shit for himself. 

Drawing his leg up under him with his bare foot hanging over the edge of the couch, Steve nimbly unwraps a caramel melt. “This is kind of late notice, but Sam’s got the weekend free so he’s coming into the city. Thought he could stay here. That’s fine, right?”

“What late notice? ‘S not like I was planning on a rager from the garage to the penthouse. Mi casa es su casa,” Tony sing-songs, wiping off his greased fingers in a rag. He doesn’t think it’d go over well, mentioning that he and Sam have been texting since they left Washington. That it was his idea for Sam to come to New York. Instead, Tony makes grabby hands at Steve’s candy. 

Steve tosses over a few with a slight frown that’s more grossed out than disparaging. “Still think you should actually wash your hands with water and soap before eating.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’ve made it this long, Mom. Don’t get into a snit. Also you’re a hypocrite.” Tony pops a piece of caramel into his mouth, delights in the crystalline burst of salt and spread of sugar on his tongue. “Yum, this is a new favorite. More of this. So you and Wilson have big plans?”

“Not really. Just catching up, pretty much,” Steve says, after his throat has worked down a melt, and Tony doesn’t know when he started tracing the action. “I think he worries, and I feel awful about that, getting him involved with all of this. Making his life so complicated, having to watch his back and my own. He said it’s fine and it was his choice and I respect that, I do, but—”

“Can’t help wanting to protect the people you care about, Cap,” Tony responds wryly, shrugging. “Not that hard to understand. Especially when you get lucky enough to even have people in your life to give a shit about. What makes things—people, _jesus_ —precious, treasured is that we can lose them. Makes perfect sense to me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly,” Steve breathes softly, just as soft as his eyes that have widened, revelatory. And that’s trouble because Tony wants to earn that awe over and over again.

“We could go out,” Tony suggests in a hurry and a little too loud, speaking over whatever the hell is vibrating in his insides and up his spine. “Maybe taking a break wouldn’t be so bad? For a couple of days. And being Tony Stark comes with a spotlight but for every spotlight there’s a VIP room. We could do a restaurant or a bar.”

“We don’t have to, Tony. You’ve done so much already. It’s really not necessary,” Steve insists.

Tony hisses, chooses to go default and makes light of it. “See the thing is that I’m fond of keeping my head attached to the rest of my body and I’m terrified Natasha will rip it right off. She told me that I need to let you out on Saturdays, and I haven’t really made good on my promise.”

Steve groans. “Of course she did. She really does not quit.”

Tony’s heard all about Natasha’s matchmaking. He nearly bent out of shape howling at the story Steve told him about the accountant with the lip piercing, begging Tony to _stop laughing._

“Nope. And speaking of...mail call.” Tony gets up and retrieves an old, browned folder from a nearby bench. He hands it to Steve, hates that he has to. Hates the sour shadow that falls over Steve’s face; like clockwork it sets with any news or—as has been trending—lack thereof. “Came in today. Origins, Kiev.”

Steve eyes leap from the folder to Tony, a tightness between them that Tony can’t quite put a name on, more potent than anxiety or fear. The grip he has on the dossier floods his knuckles white. “Is there. Did you—did you find anything?”

“No, because I didn’t read it,” Tony assures him, watching Steve carefully to see if anything gives. “Aside from the fact that most of it is probably in Russian and translating from a hardcopy is a bitch, I wouldn’t look over it without you here. I know what this means to you.”

“I—thanks, Tony. That. That’s thoughtful of you,” Steve says in a stumble, voice catching on the vowels. Blinking and getting to his feet, he murmurs, “Dammit. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. Don’t do that. We’re good.” Tony steps close to him, is careful not to hover. With his best efforts, he keeps his restless and empty hands to his sides. Quietly, “Hey, Steve. Hey, are you okay?”

And Steve doesn’t pretend to be alright, shakes his head ‘no.’ “Crap day,” is what he manages in a humorless huff. 

And it’s truly a crap day because Tony’s heart is doing the impossible and picking up a hammering and precarious beat under his sternum, one that he didn’t even know he still had the instruments for, that snuck in while Tony wasn’t paying attention. Impossibly, it beats and breaks for Steve. Impossibly, because Tony was so sure that Pepper had taken it all with her.

Swallowing, he reaches out and motions for what he wants. 

He places the folder on his work table when Steve gives it back.

“You wanna bump up _Rocky_ on the schedule?” Tony offers, and he can practically see the tension bleeding out of Steve.

“And _Rocky II?_ ” Steve prompts, and it sounds like a thank you.

“Ugh, you don’t even know if you’re going to like the first movie,” Tony says, adopting a put-upon tone. He falls into the couch, flings aside a pillow that digs into his kidney and rustles out the candy from under his ass. “You do this every time. You and your second chances. Alright, JARVIS, you heard the man. Queue up the first two _Rocky_ movies, please, and make an order to Carmine’s because my teeth are gonna rot at this rate.”

*

Tony’s staring at dusty military-grade boots until Rhodey gets with the program, flips his phone camera, and his bright grin that Tony can’t help but return takes up half of Tony’s monitor, a backdrop of cloudless sky behind him.

“Alert the masses!” Rhodey proclaims. “Anthony Edward Stark has cracked the code to life model decoys. Hey, LMD—version one-point-oh?—take me to your creator.” 

“Hah. Here’s the real rub. What you don’t know is that I’ve had LMDs for years now. Remember that Fitness Fur All gala in 2003?” Tony asks. 

“When you were trying to get with the yoga instructor you met after we woke up hungover at a dog park? Ironically, and by a cruel twist of karmic fate, I still can’t scrub your downward dog from my brain,” Rhodey says with a dramatic shudder. “You sending in a LMD would explain the consumption of those foul vegetarians meatballs though, leggy brunette or no.”

“Don’t forget bendy. She was very bendy.” Tony slants forward in his chair and rests his chin on his fist. “Seriously, gumdrop, how are you? How’s Kuwait?”

“I’m excellent. Kuwait is sweltering. Sand is dry and water is wet, Tony. What are you doing calling me at, let’s see, it’s fourteen-hundred hours here and that’s seven in the morning your time. And you’re too well-dressed to be going to bed,” Rhodey notes after a brief appraisal. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t just call you?”

“Oh, anytime, but you don’t. Last time you rang me this early, I was your one phone call.”

“That was almost twenty years ago.”

“Exactly. So what is going on?”

Tony makes a last ditch effort. “No way I can convince you that I’m an incredibly considerate human being and wanted to catch you at an hour that’s not godforsaken to chat and reconnect?” Rhodey doesn’t bite so Tony sighs. “I might be into Steve Rogers, and I need someone to reinforce what an awful idea that is while he’s not here because for some reason Steve has a habit of living in the workshop, which is fine but also makes me sort of cagey since I then have to actively school my face not to make heart eyes at him.”

“Right,” Rhodey says slowly.

“And while he’s out running around the city, literally, with his best friend, I decided that I’d take the time to call mine since I’m nothing if not an opportunist. So I need you to give me one of your epic lectures. Please.”

“Tony, it’s Captain America. Most of the country could probably sympathize with having a crush on the guy.” Laughing, Rhodey adds, “Hell, this whole military base would be happy to swap places with you. It’s not a big deal.”

“Rhodey, Rhodes, this isn’t a crush,” Tony says significantly, hopes that Rhodey gets it because Tony doesn’t know how to encapsulate these last few weeks, these last few days, and put them into words. How to simplify an immensity that’s deep and leaves Tony wading through the residue of a design that was shaped years ago in the midst of chaos. What Tony had mistaken for the clash of conflicting personalities had instead been two sources of energy so like each other, that burned so hot, they were always going to ignite at the start. That once they let this breathe, it’d forge into something like a new element, easy to read—easy everything—once it had a composite and fully-realized structure.

It’s quantifiable and not, because half the time Tony can’t even articulate it to himself, especially when he’s only half of it and more than likely Steve doesn’t feel the same way, but even given that, it still feels irrevocably right. 

“Tony,” Rhodey starts, and it’s loaded. “I thought that you couldn’t stand the guy.”

“Thin line between love and hate? I don’t know,” Tony says, groaning. He tries to marshal his thoughts and string together something coherent. “There’s the whole thing about not meeting your heroes, how they never measure up, but Steve pretty much broke the ruler and I didn’t take that well—that all of the stories Howard told me were actually true. That Steve was worth being canonized. That I looked at him there, in real life, and couldn’t fault my dad for going on about him for hours on end. I think that’s what I resented,” Tony recognizes just as it’s uttered. “It was never him.”

“And what’s changed?”

“Don’t know what you got 'til it’s gone?”

“Is this what we’re doing? Dishing out idioms to explain your feelings?”

“Don’t knock it. They’re very helpful when one is emotionally stunted.”

Rhodey is hesitant, his face drawn down with worry as he peers at Tony. “Is this—Tony, you know I’ve got to ask. Is this is in any way about Pepper?”

Tony’s prepared for that, knew it would come up, because admittedly, the timing is shady. While Tony and Pepper may have split up a while ago, there’s been no one since. Nothing serious. A few one night stands, dates that didn’t last past the morning, but they were all distractions, good enough until they weren’t. Soon enough, Tony’s attention returned to where life made sense—building suits and waiting on the moment to fly them. And then Steve, in the worst way possible, gave Tony a reason to wear the armor again.

“When we fought together in the Battle of New York, there was a moment. It wasn’t sepia-toned or saccharine, not that kind of thing. We were fighting for our lives, and we pulled off this, god, video game move with my repulsors on his shield,” Tony starts, recalls, he can almost taste the buzz still. He continues, “No rehearsal, no practice, or even really having to try. I knew what to do, and he knew what to do, and it fell into place with ease. Everything with him is that effortless. It’s been there from the get. It’s not about Pepper, but if you’re asking where she comes in, it’s right there.”

“What are you going to do, Tony?” Rhodey asks, cautiously cutting into the weighted and serious air.

“Well you’ll be proud to know that I have a solid, plotted-out course of action,” Tony tells him with a tight grin. “And that action is nothing. Like I said emotionally stunted.”

Rhodey stares at him, distinctly unhappy with his answer. “Are you kidding? You live with him. You can’t do that to yourself.”

“It’ll go away.”

“Am I the only one who heard the declaration that you just made? This is not just going to go away. Tony, I have never seen you like this.”

“Alright, then _he’ll_ go away!” Tony snaps and he suddenly regrets this call. He breathes in through his nose and counts until his lungs no longer feel ironclad. “We’ll locate Bucky Barnes, drag him home from wherever he’s hiding, and then he and Steve can—”

He doesn’t finish; he can’t. He doesn’t want to arrive at the other side or think about the way Steve talks about Barnes sometimes, the longing Tony catches in his eyes on occasion, what getting Barnes back might mean to Steve.

After a stretch of silence, Rhodey’s voice is non-judgemental and calming, and Tony takes it back; he needed to make this call.

“Tony, I know you don’t want to do this again, and I’m sorry,” Rhodey says quietly, and Tony is mentally convincing himself not to get in a suit and fly off halfway around the world. “You have to tell him, though. You know that.”

“I know and I will,” Tony promises, glances up and nods. “When the timing’s right, I will. He’s got a lot of shit at the moment so.”

“He’s not the only one,” Rhodey says, not unkindly and with understanding eyes. “And Tony? You and Steve Rogers? It’s not a bad idea. Your involvement in a relationship, a team, or whatever else, doesn’t inherently make it a bad idea.”

*

“No fireworks,” Steve says, turning a ripe peach this way and that because his idea of a birthday morning well spent is a visit to the farmer’s market. 

“I’m almost positive you’re lying about the x-ray vision. C’mon, Spangles. No cake, no strippers, no fireworks?” Tony bellyaches, closing the map on his phone with directions to the nearest chain store. At least, he’d been willing to search for legal TNT. “No fun. What kind of birthday is this? It’s downright un-American.”

“I didn’t veto cake in general. I love cake. I could crush some cake. But ninety-six layers is absurd, Tony,” Steve says. “You want blueberries? They’re organic.”

After Tony nods, Steves adds another carton to his eco-bag on top of the one for a red, white, and blue fruit tart he’s been wanting to try for dessert and actually made Tony print out the recipe for. Steve grabs a thing of strawberries and Tony isn’t near to hives at the sight of them. 

“How else am I supposed to keep track of your age? Ninety-six candles is a fire hazard and you won’t let me spank you.” Tony winks and sips iced coffee from a travel mug that Steve either bought since moving in or Tony stuffed into a cupboard and forgot. It’s splashed with the molecular formula for caffeine and Tony _would never_ so he’s leaning toward the former.

“Technically, you didn’t ask,” Steve replies, flat, but the playful twitch at the corner of his mouth is easy to spot now that Tony is an expert on its evolution. He mozies over to a table buckling under crates of tomatoes and cucumbers in a strut.

Tony stares after him, arrested on the spot. After he’s regained feeling in his knees, he reaches Steve in quick steps, leans in to whisper, “You are just. Okay, firstly? You’re a menace. And there is a secondly, a thirdly, and so forth but none of them are appropriate to be uttered in public. I realize that doing the unexpected is your thing but you should be careful, someone just might call your bluff.”

“Maybe that’s alright,” Steve says low but the indifferent pitch is gone, same as the quirk of his playful smile. He’s looking right into Tony’s eyes without a hint of sarcasm.

Briefly, Tony contemplates running away, but that’d be ridiculous because they drove over together in Tony’s car—ditching Captain America at the farmer’s market would probably get him skewered—and Steve isn’t, well, Steve can’t be serious.

And through the remainder of the morning and afternoon, he gives Tony no reason to believe that he is. 

An intern in R&D has a sister who’s got some sculptures being hosted at a Caribbean art gallery in Brooklyn and Steve was thrilled when Tony mentioned it in passing, so they go there, an elegant loft space pinched in a row of historic buildings with exposed brick and a sequence of pendant lights stretching its interior. 

There’s not much of a crowd, a scattering of small clusters and pairs making up the gallery’s patrons. Their animated conversations turn into an excited murmur when Steve takes off his sunglasses, and the next few minutes proceed as they tend to. One person nervously asks for a photo, which emboldens their friend to follow suit and in a blink, there’s a line.

“Start at the back and circle around to the cafe?” Steve suggests to Tony, once everyone’s gotten bored of them.

“This is your world, birthday boy. I’m only living in it,” Tony says, extends a hand. “Lead the way.”

Steve makes a face but, proving Tony right, he slips seamlessly into the role of aficionado. He explains how the Cubist lines emphasize the two-dimensional, flatten the portrayal of moon divination— _it’s geometry, Tony, you should love this_ —enrapt with a painting’s dramatic blend of color and complimenting the bravery of one artist’s multimedia display. The exhibit is a tribute to African heritage and culture, and Steve doesn’t pretend to know everything that each label and panel refers to, picking the curator’s brain like a teacher’s pet whenever he has a question and increasingly curious at the tangents the answers introduce. Tony is way too old to find anything adorable but he’s charmed by Steve’s passion, finds him endlessly attractive when he sinks into a crouch to better admire the sculptures, hands close but not touching, fingertips hovering over the contours and swells of the man depicted.

It consumes Tony with want.

Tony’s quiet in the car on the drive back to Manhattan, and that gets Steve’s attention and concern. Tony lies badly and can’t even function under the pretense that he gets away with it because when he tells Steve that he’d forgotten about a teleconference with SI’s board of directors—like he would even care—Steve’s looks at Tony with a resultant expression of confusion and hurt. It’s there and gone in a flash but it sticks with Tony like dirt under his fingernails. It doesn’t leave him when they return to the tower and part ways with the uneasy promise to meet for dinner, Steve to his floor and Tony into the safe haven of mechanical guts, wiring, and code. 

*

Tony keeps his promise, though. He pays for the steak dinner they get delivered to the penthouse, sticks the sparklers he got at the gas station in King’s County when Steve wasn’t looking into the tart, eats more than half of it and is earnest in his pursuit of the mascarpone and gingersnap crumbs left over in the pan.

In the living room, Tony unearths Steve’s present from its hiding spot under the bar and slides it across to Steve, narrowly missing the decanter of brandy that’s gone untouched for the night. He waves off Steve’s objections. “Honestly, did you really think I was going to listen?”

“Guess not,” Steve replies, sheepish. He takes the gift and gently tugs the ribbon free, peels away the wrapping paper, and smiles wide when he sees the outside of the shoe-sized box. He barks out a laugh and almost crushes the thing, pitching forward.

“Hey,” Tony starts, and he really had no chance of pulling this off straight-faced. “You put us here.”

Steve wipes at the corner of his eye. “It happened one time!”

“I don’t know where you learned to count but nope. Not once.”

“Is there such a thing as a backhanded birthday present? Because this is it, let me tell ya. You truly are an innovator, Tony,” Steve says, unfolds from over the box, and finally opens it, composure evidently regained. He pulls out the two mugs and turns them around for Tony to read: paint water :), _not_ paint water :(.

“Innovative isn’t the word I’d use since I bought it, online at that, but now I’m thinking that I could have made it. You sharpie and bake it, right? Huh, maybe next birthday but anyhow when you went to use the restroom at the gallery, I ran it by the girl at the counter. You know, never dismiss the chance for an objective opinion. She approved, said it may not actually work but that you’d appreciate the thought,” Tony says. “So there.”

“Think it’s more a gift for you than it is for me.”

“True enough but studies show that ten out of ten would prefer their French roast not tasting like, what was it last time, smokey topaz? Who can blame me?”

“I love them, Tony. Really,” Steve says, smile warm and earnest. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I know it’s not much—”

“It’s _great_. I wouldn’t say I love it if I didn’t.”

Tony snorts. “Yes, you would. I am not buying what you’re selling, old man.”

“Fine. Maybe,” Steve replies. His thumb skims the lip of one mug, gaze downcast for a moment before lifting up. Quietly, “But I mean it. Today has been the best I’ve had in so long. There’s not much else that I could’ve asked for.”

“It sounds embarrassingly naive but I was hoping that we’d find him in time,” Tony confesses because while he’s glad that Steve enjoys his present, it feels so damn small and inadequate, and he doesn’t know how to care for someone without that in tow. That he just can’t get it right. He wants Steve to know he’s trying. “I wanted to find Barnes for you. Be able to hand you a progress report with actual progress at any rate. Place it in a Hallmark card or something.”

“Yeah. That would be great but I was never counting on that to happen.” Steve shrugs, conveys a grudging acceptance. “This is just as good. Tony, you’re my friend. Same as Buck.”

Because he’s more prone to self-sabotage than any other individual on the planet, Tony does not shut up. He walks the outer curve of the bar, regards Steve skeptically. “Well not exactly the same, right?”

Steve’s eyes follow him, a frown bent on his mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Unless I’ve misread the situation, when you get Barnes back, it won’t just be a buddy-buddy reunion.” He fits himself between two barstools, keeps another between him and Steve. He leans back and crosses his arms before him. “I mean, it’s cool. C'est la vie and whatnot.”

“What? Tony, Bucky and I—we weren’t ever that. He’s my brother. I’ve always seen him as my brother. He’s family, and I love him. I do miss him, so much, but—” Steve says, bewildered and amused and clearly laughing at Tony. “Jeez. Yes, you’ve misread the situation. Badly.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay then,” Tony says with a nod after mulling it over. He thinks it’s time to tell Steve—he has another promise to keep—and it’s getting harder and harder not to say it. But he won’t do it yet. Tony could very well ruin them, but he’s not going to ruin Steve’s birthday.

*

When it finally happens, Tony doesn't actually _say_ anything.

They’re in the workshop. Steve’s on the couch sketching, and Tony’s shifting through schematic projections of Steve’s shield because there’s a side project germinating in Tony’s mind and Steve will be needing an upgrade if it actually comes to fruition.

“Just working on a way to make sure you don’t lose it again,” Tony says when Steve asks. “I should probably have you whip the real one around soon, get the practical distance of your average throw, outside ranges, etcetera.”

“And what will you do with that?”

“Create tech to keep the shield within a mathematically determined radius of your person.”

“Oh that’s neat,” Steve responds. 

Tony heaves an exasperated sigh. “Neat. He says it’s neat. Yeah, no. Come on. Park it over here. I’ll show you.”

At that, Steve sets his stuff aside like he’s excited, absolutely game. It’s open and honest and causes such a wild pick-up in Tony’s heart that it’s a wonder Steve doesn’t hear it when he comes to stand next to Tony.

“JARVIS, let’s make this life size for the Captain, shall we?”

The projection expands to the appropriate dimensions. 

“Lose the framework and remove the straps.” Tony mentally readies a reply for at least a noise of disapproval from Steve but it doesn’t come—Steve stays favorably engaged—so he continues, “And insert the mock-ups. Yep, there we go. Gorgeous. I don’t pay you nearly enough, J.”

“Seeing as how monetary compensation would be ill-spent on me, Sir, I’m quite satisfied with our current arrangement of unsettled IOUs,” JARVIS responds, level and full of sass.

Steve rocks on his feet with a whistle. “Welp, there it is.”

“Please let the record show that I feel attacked,” Tony says. He starts separating the floating material into individual components before him. “Empty your pockets, accomplice.”

Steve unwedges his hands from his jeans and accepts the vambrace that Tony passes over to him, slips it up his forearm.

“So the fundamentals haven’t changed but the straps are outdated. They work efficiently enough but your handles can get better without them in the way,” Tony explains. 

“What would you replace them with?” Steve asks curiously.

“Electromagnetic panels,” Tony informs him. He grabs the mock-up of said devices out of the projection and plants them on the vambrace. “And considering your proclivity for playing frisbee with the bad guys and the exponential rate at which magnetic force decreases over distance, they’ll be powered by an arc reactor.”

Steve looks at him, wide-eyed and amazed. “The arc reactor? That runs your suit—you’d? You’d put that in my shield?”

He sounds honored of all things, and Tony swallows over the affection that threatens to overwhelm him. He’s hoarse when he says, “Of course I would.”

Needing something to do with his hands that isn’t loaned from his daytime-slash-late night fantasies, he gets the false shield, asks Steve to throw it out. “JARVIS will stop it and send it back to you, mimicking the response. It’ll only be a fraction of the speed but it should tell you the difference.” 

Steve does as instructed and when the shield returns to him, fast and polished, he looks lit up from the inside. Awed. Tony’s name leaves him in an exhalation of wonder.

Tony doesn’t say what he’s been meaning to say because he can’t physically say anything. The speeches he’s tried repeatedly to puzzle together to perfection have been vacuumed out by the clutch behind his ribs and Steve’s utterly boundless smile, that’s proud and, god, _loving_ , Tony thinks. He thinks that’s been there for a while, derivatives of it patched into the countless moments leading up to this one. 

The only suitable reaction, the only thing that Tony can do, is lick the leftovers of his name from Steve’s lips.

Tony’s minimally aware of the projections collapsing around them when he hauls Steve in by the neck of his shirt and draw his mouth over Steve’s. He takes full advantage of the hitch of Steve’s breath, tongues the plush bottom lip that has been haunting him; it fits between Tony’s teeth even better than he imagined. Steve kisses him back and that’s something Tony hadn’t even dared to hope for.

Steve presses his body flush to Tony’s, and, after a short introduction of hip to hip and chest to chest, he actually sweeps Tony off of his feet, walks them over to the workbench. He notches his thigh in the vee of Tony’s legs, and Tony grinds into it with enthusiasm, chases after it like it’s his first touch of someone else. With an appreciative moan, he pushes himself into Steve’s hands that grip at his middle and then rove up his sides. “Fuck yes,” Tony breathes.

And Tony wouldn’t have said anything had he known it’d make Steve ask stupid questions. “Good?” He teases, follows the fashion of his fingers that course Tony’s neck to arrive at his mouth, beg at the seam, and groans when Tony sucks in three of them. “You don’t play fair.”

“I’m not playing at all,” Tony says when he pulls off. It comes out entirely too serious, low and real and nowhere near the levity he was aiming for. 

And Tony wouldn’t have said anything had he known it’d make Steve look like _that,_ and it’s heartrendingly familiar. He’s reminded of Steve quiet and torn, pain fresh in his handsome features. 

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks. 

“I can’t do this,” Steve says, fault lines littered in his voice. 

“Really? Because I think two minutes ago would disagree with you.” He searches Steve’s eyes. “Do you not want this?”

“God, Tony, I want this more than anything,” Steve says as if the words leave him vacated. 

And even in this pear-shaping moment, that thrills the base of Tony. He knows that Steve’s telling him nothing less than the absolute truth. He knows it now, feels like the knowledge has been buoyed from his blood, so he doesn’t get, doesn’t understand—

“What’s the problem then?” Tony asks.

“I don’t know how to,” Steve starts brokenly after a stretched ellipses. “Tony, I don’t want you to hate me.”

Tony’s tongue gets caught between platitudes and the truth. He’s a scientist. He believes there’s an equal opposite to everything, including this enormous, ever growing thing he feels for Steve, that curves, bends, and entangles in his life with a sense of permanence. However, he also believes that probability is on their side. 

“That’s not likely,” Tony says softly, gives him a small smile. “Just tell me, Steve.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve says like it’s killing him and more important to him, and because of that, Tony answers:

“I’ll do my best to remember that.”

“I don’t have proof. I should start by saying that,” Steve tells him, prudent with his tone. “However, I do have my intuition and my gut feeling says that it’s true. No matter how much I wish it weren’t. You remember what I told you about about Lehigh? When I went back?”

Tony nods. “Arnim Zola’s secret lair, yeah, I remember that one.”

“I told you what Zola said about Hydra infiltrating SHIELD, but there was something he showed me that I didn’t know how to tell you. I wanted to tell you that first day in the hospital but then you got the call about my shield, and every day after that it just became harder.” He and his words shake in tandem, and Tony can’t fight his instinct to reach out. He places his hand flat on Steve’s chest, the derby pounding underneath it something vicious.

“Steve,” Tony whispers in a hush, wants to settle him.

“You kept visiting and you were so kind and helpful and I didn’t know how to break that because it felt so good.” The pull of his lips trembles, like rocked water, makes a set with blue eyes that are beginning to swim. “It was the best thing I’d felt, every moment with you has been like that. Things either hurt less or they don’t hurt at all, and I didn’t want to hurt you. I still don’t. But I can’t do this with you, care about you this way and keep this secret. They can’t both fit in my heart.”

“Then tell me,” Tony encourages because the more he listens, the more he wants Steve to be free, whatever it takes. “Tell me, please.”

“I think—” The deep breath he takes under Tony’s hand rolls back out hard. “I have reason to believe that Bucky killed your parents.”

All of Tony sinks, his hand drops from Steve like he’s not there, flinches away like he accidentally mistook a stranger for a friend.

“What?” And the energy it takes for that simple question exhausts him, mines him out entirely and leaves him miserable. He can’t feel the seat underneath him but refuses Steve’s hands when they appear in his clouded vision. He shoves at them and stumbles onto his feet—away, away, away. 

He’s faintly aware of Steve in the background, noise that drones in and out. 

_newspaper footage, accident, proof, best friend, I love, didn’t know how, didn’t know what, didn’t know how, didn’t know how_

Tony’s at the door, no recollection of getting there or to the anger that gets him to wheel around on Steve. “You didn’t know how? You just say it, Steve! You just tell me, for fuck’s sake!”

“Tony, I—”

“I want the real reason,” Tony interrupts, already sick with what’s Steve got lined up. “None of these lies about not wanting to hurt me. I want the truth.”

“That is the truth, Tony,” Steve croaks, drenched in desperation. He sounds terrible, and in this moment, Tony hates that he cares. “I couldn’t—Tony, telling you, the only purpose it’d serve was to bring you unnecessary pain.”

“What makes you think that you get to decide that?” 

“Telling you wouldn’t have changed anything, Tony.”

“Except maybe I’d have decided to drop out of this search for your precious Bucky, huh?”

“I wasn’t concerned with that. That was never—I didn’t care about that. I didn’t think about that. Tony, I know how your parents’ death destroyed you before. I didn’t want to put you through that again. The idea of that, I couldn’t take it.” Steve finishes, words scarred with defeat, “Tony, I was trying my best.”

“Is there any version of this where I don’t have to throw myself at you before you grow a conscience, I get made aware that my parents—my _parents_ , Steve—were assassinated? You don’t think that I deserved to be let in on this information at any point?” 

“I was terrified that one day you’d be blindsided with it and find out from someone who doesn’t love you. Who wouldn’t be kind or take care with how they told you. I didn’t think you deserved that,” Steve tells him. “Or you could have discovered it on your own and the thought of you being alone and reading that in black and white. That scared me. You deserve better than that. I was afraid of you finding out and hurting and me not being there to fix it. Not being there to take care of you. I’m still terrified of that. The thought of you in pain—”

“Yeah, you’ve said,” Tony cuts him off again, clipped. It’s whiplash to have not long ago been so moved by that loving tenor and now, now it’s infuriating to hear—a firebrand coil tight around his spine. “So if there’s nothing new, I’m gonna go upstairs, and I’d really appreciate it if you made yourself absent. It would be extremely considerate of you, Steve. I mean, you are invested in my best interests, right?”

Tony turns his back on Steve and walks out, trusting him—hah—not to follow. 

*

“J, I wanna revisit the tea Natasha spilled all over the internet,” Tony says. Every hardcopy he’s looked over goes nowhere and maybe a fresh pair of eyes will catch something in the file-dump. It’d be nice if Tony actually had a fresh pair of eyes, but his insomnia-cured and strained vision will have to make do. “Keywords: Stark, Maria, Howard, accident, Winter Soldier, Barnes.”

And it’s more of the same. The articles he’s poured over more frequently than is sane don’t bear the whiff of a hint, and there’s absolutely nothing on the Winter Soldier anywhere. Not even in the deepest and darkest crevices of Hydra-Shield’s spidery catacombs.

Barnes is heavier than a shadow at his back and more elusive than a ghost.

“I apologize, Sir,” JARVIS says, and Tony doesn’t get how people can ever ask if he’s a computer the first time they hear them. “Captain Rogers did acknowledge that he had no confirmation or evidence for his theory that the Winter Soldier was responsible for the passing of your parents. Perhaps Captain Rogers was incorrect in his conclusion?” 

“No way to know for sure, right? He said it. I am in a painful limbo with zero exit signs.” Sighing, Tony rubs at the headache forming at the base of his skull. “But he wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t trust it was the truth, and god help me but I still trust him. I just—I don’t know where else to to go. I’ve overturned every stone I can think of.”

JARVIS is significantly silent. 

“What’s on your artificial hippocampus, buddy?”

“Agent Margaret Carter was the Director of SHIELD at that time, Sir. You have neglected to include her in the parameters of your search. It is a substantial piece of information to neglect.”

“Okay. I know that I’ve been recently betrayed and maybe you’re experiencing sympathy pains or paranoia or something. I understand that, but Peggy and my father were friends. Good friends,” Tony emphasizes. “The one true friend he had. I’m certain of that. There’s—Peggy Carter is someone I have no doubts about. She’s not involved.”

“My intention is not to dismiss the integrity of Agent Carter’s character but from what I’ve gathered, should we not entertain the possibility that she may have had suspicions regarding the circumstances of the accident?”

“JARVIS, you do your namesake proud,” Tony says, with some vigor. “Okay scratch the last search and switch to keywords: Carter, director, Howard, Stark, accident. Eliminate whatever comes up prior to 1991.”

“1254 results, Sir.”

“Talk about excessive. Sure you got that last directive?”

“Nearly every result after her retirement is an auditory file. It appears that SHIELD had surveillance on Agent Carter as recently as April of this year. Transcribed, the second to last recording does fall within our search.”

“Play it. Start at the first timestamp with pertaining keywords.”

Because Tony’s life is what it is, Steve’s voice is back in the workshop. He’s laughing as he and Peggy share a fond memory, Howard playing a tertiary character in their recollection—they sound completely transferred in time—and Tony’s missed that laugh so much that he aches with it. However, Tony does have some tact, and he’s never wanted to be in the same company as SHIELD, doesn’t feel like changing his stride now. “Do you know if this goes anywhere, J? Feeling a little intrusive.”

“There is no reference to the accident.” The feed pauses, and JARVIS continues, vague but unmistakably steering, “However, I do believe that there is part of the conversation that you should hear.”

Dubious, Tony wonders, “Why am I getting Natasha Romanoff-vibes from you right now?”

There’s no response from JARVIS and the recording filters through again.

 _I have lived a life. My only regret is the you didn’t get to live yours,_ Peggy is saying. _What is it?_ she asks, and it’s steeped in concern; it’s perceptive and gentle—well-read in the language of Steve Rogers. 

_For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I'm not quite sure what that is anymore._ He sounds lost and forlorn, horribly alone. Before last night happened, it’d been months since Tony heard him like that. _And I thought I could throw myself back in and follow orders, serve. It's just not the same._

 _You're always so dramatic,_ Peggy says in a delicate tease. _Look, you saved the world. We rather...mucked it up._

 _You didn't. Knowing that you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay,_ Steve says duty-filled, content and neutral and selfless. Thinking of himself last, and Tony knows there's nothing he wouldn't do for him.

 _Hey. The world has changed, and none of us can go back._ Sage and timeless, Peggy tells Steve. _All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over._

*

 _Tony, I was trying my best,_ replays over and over in his head.

*

Steve tried to start over in the twenty-first century with SHIELD, placed all of his faith and purpose in what was familiar to him in a strange world. Tony might be at his most arrogant in thinking this—or his most vulnerably hopeful—but he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he gave Steve a real second home. 

*

For the second time in a handful of months, Tony shows up in Washington looking for Steve.

“You’re earlier than I thought you’d be,” Sam says when he opens the door.

“Got some sort of betting pool going on, Wilson?” Tony asks, squinting after taking off his sunglasses.

“Nope, turns out that you’re just not as stubborn as I pegged you for,” Sam clarifies with a laugh. “That or you’re deeper in love with Steve Rogers than I thought.”

Tony snorts. “Well, as most would testify, I’m plenty stubborn, so it’s definitely not the first part.” He swallows, uncertain if this exchange means he’s welcomed or not. “Is he in?”

“No,” Sam says with a shake of his head and steps aside, gestures Tony through the door. “He’s at the farmer’s market.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Tony says, turning on his heel with a smile that feels tight and hasn't been easy in days.

“Says he’s gonna make me a pie,” Sam adds after closing the door. “I’m pretty excited about it.”

“Oh, you should be. For a guy sprung from an age of serious FDA violations, he’s surprisingly top-notch in the kitchen. I’d keep him in there if he wasn’t so damned independent,” Tony replies.

“Does that mean you came to take him home?” Sam wonders with a raised brow, and Tony isn’t exactly inclined to answer. He supposes it shows or that Sam isn’t actually seeking one. Instead, he walks to his fridge, disappears in its cavern before tossing over a bottle of water and propping himself against the door.

“It tore him apart.” Sam shakes his head, rueful. “No, I didn’t know about your parents. Not 'til he came knocking on my door and I smoked it out of him. I’m referring to Barnes. I saw Steve’s face when he found out—never thought I’d see devastation on him again, like that, until last week. Except it was worse.”

“Is this the shovel talk?”

“Eh, we can put that on the shelf for now. Think you do that well enough on your own. Too well. I’m saying he deserves some happiness and, from what it sounds like, so do you.” He lurches up. “Now, it’s gonna be a while before he’s back here which I’m sure you’re aware of. You feeling Mario Kart?”

“I want Princess Peach,” Tony insists, accepting a controller and dropping into Sam’s sectional.

Sam rolls his eyes and pops a squat beside him. “Now that I could have definitely made some money on.”

They’re squabbling over whether or not go for a best out of seven when Steve jingles through the door, keys and what looks like half of the market in his arms. He stops in blatant surprise, mouth open, and now that Tony’s kissed him, it’s pretty much all he wants to do. “Oh. Hey. Um.”

Tony literally jumps at the chance. “I can help you with those.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Steve says softly, still stunned, and Tony hates that because when they’re normal, Steve doesn’t hesitate to heap groceries on him. Tony irrationally resents that these bags aren’t the environment-friendly ones that Steve typically uses, that those are stored idle under the kitchen counter at the tower.

“I want to,” Tony says and cleaves a few to himself.

“Well this is all very domestic and out of my purview and comfort zone so I’m going to give you guys some space,” Sam says, blunt as ever and getting up. He makes for the back of the apartment, but first points to the sectional. “Also my aunt gave me that couch. It’s sacred so bear that in mind.”

“I could buy you a new one,” Tony offers with open hands, smirking.

“Keep on, Stark, and I’m leaving my office door open,” Sam threatens, giving him the stink eye until Tony puts his hands up in surrender.

And then it’s just Steve and Tony left to set up in the kitchen.

“I really, really like him, but he can never be made aware of that fact,” Tony breaks first after a soundtrack of stacking and closing cabinets. He comments conspiratorially, “He’s way too much fun.”

“I’m not supposed to tell you, but the feeling is mutual,” Steve says. The corner of his mouth upticks and he continues, wistful, “I’m glad that the two of you get along.”

“Sam’s important to you and he’s good people. What’s not to appreciate?” Tony replies with a shrug. He reaches for another bag and finds something labeled chili-lime sweet potato chips. “Kind of don’t want to let him have these though. Um, what are these and why don’t they have them at our—the one back in New York?”

“The guy selling them had a ton. All of these flavors, some of them were kind of weird ” Steve says expressively. With a slight chuckle, “They had brown sugar bacon, though, and of course, that made me think of you.”

“Love me some bacon,” Tony replies, unapologetically. “You know if he’ll be there tomorrow?’

Steve’s gaze moves over him in consideration, guarded against hope. “Tony, will _you_ be here tomorrow?”

An aching and long moment passes between them, and in lieu of scaring Tony shitless, it makes him feel courageous.

“It started too early,” Tony opens with. “I kissed you and suddenly everything went to hell. I thought when that eventually happened, we’d have more to fight for. That’s what I thought, and then you left—er, well I kicked you out—and I knew that we do have something worth fighting for. I’ve learned from experience that perfection is never going to happen. It doesn’t exist but good does. And I’m pissed at you, Steve. I am. But I think that you and I, we’re good. And I don’t believe that’s worth losing on account of what your brainwashed best friend did before you and I even met.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you the truth about your parents,” Steve says.

“Are you?” Tony asks. “And that’s not my being a smartass and or trying to be difficult. It’s a question that I honestly can’t figure out the answer to. I’d be both surprised and impressed if you knew.”

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Steve amends, genuine and quiet. “I wanted to avoid it so badly.”

“When I first met Sam and he caught me up on everything that happened to you here, I didn’t envy you at all. Having to choose between your best friend and saving millions of lives. I mean, I knew what you’d do. It’d be hard for you but the choice was obvious. Because you’re you and if you actually had a cape, the cape would never come off. You’d wear the cape in the fucking shower. Which is one of the many things that I love about you.”

“Tony—”

Tony puts up a hand. “Just let me finish here. I have a speech, and if I don’t get through it, I’m afraid of this not working. Like bad juju. Last time I didn’t do my speech and things turned to shit. You’re not the only one allowed to make speeches, Steve. You do not have a monopoly.”

Steve sends him a look that says that he thinks Tony is sort of ridiculous but he zips at his mouth that’s biting back a grin.

“So yeah, where was I? I love how much of a hero you are. Even when it sucks and you’re trying to save everyone and everything at once, and you just—you can’t do that, Steve. But I don’t want you to change because I think that you’re the best person I’ve ever met and when we’re together, that’s the best, and I think we can fight for that. Not perfect, but something close that works a hell of a lot better. Like I told you at the river, we still have a lot to do.”

Tony breathes out a whoosh.

Steve looks at him cautiously. “Are you done? Because I don’t want to ruin your juju that you’re so protective of.” 

“You’re a punk. There’s one more thing because I meant it when I said what’s important to you means something to me. That’s what makes these things work, right? So I’m not saying it’s going to be easy for me to look at Barnes when we do eventually get him back. I’ll see what he did to my parents, that he put you down for two rosaries worth, and I can’t promise to not be a lowkey jerk about that at the start but I won’t blame him.” And the distinction matters so he adds, “I don’t blame him. Now, I’m officially done declaring my love for you over your gross granny smith apples.” 

Steve steps close, and Tony’s missed him. Like his entire being. He’s missed the composite they make. He tells him exactly that, filter laid at the wayside.

“I missed you too. I love you,” Steve murmurs. “Can I hold you?”

“Please do,” Tony says, barely gets it out.

And all at once, he’s in Steve’s arms. Their heads press together, and Tony thinks that Steve is always going to devastate him in some way. The affection that’s startling in his eyes and happiness that’s sweet on his generous mouth, how his lashes flicker against the bridge of Tony’s nose. Steve’s broad hands cup and hold Tony’s jaw, keep him still like he’s sketched up plans for how this is supposed to go.

“Can I kiss you?” Steve whispers, and Tony wants to inhale him in.

He concedes to a nod though and is gathered in a kiss that falls into place effortlessly, makes Tony think of comforting chaos.

*

They stay at Sam's until the next day because Steve did promise Sam a pie and he’d pinned Tony under a disapproving glare when Tony talked about driving to New York on fewer hours of sleep than it took to get there.

In hindsight, Tony is grateful because the sleep on Sam’s illustrative pullout affords Tony the energy to make out with Steve in the elevator and all the way up to the penthouse when they’re back in the city.

"Your room," Steve decides, undoing the Tony’s shirt and sucking almost-bruises above his collarbone. "I want to get a look at your Hartley."

"Mmm, hate to break it to you, sunshine, but I don't keep it on the ceiling,” Tony replies, offering up his neck to a love bite.

Steve’s laugh warms damp skin. "In the morning. I meant in the morning. I've told you that you're kind of an asshole, right?"

True as that may be, in Tony’s bedroom, Steve loves him and loves _on_ him. With detail-oriented hands, he removes the rest of Tony’s clothing. They expertly—impatiently—discard Steve’s own. He then takes them for a lazy trip over Tony’s skin, seemingly enraptured from his kneel at Tony’s feet. 

"God, you have no idea how long I've wanted to do this," Tony says, recalling marble and hot July sun. He rakes his fingers through Steve’s hair. “Watching you appreciate art is a fucking tease.”

“You’re one to talk,” Steve lobs back, low-voiced. He travels the smooth plane of Tony’s inner thigh. “When you come out of the workshop, Tony, you look like—”

“A grease monkey?” Tony ventures.

The pads of thumbs graze the bones of Tony’s hips, move into the hollows beyond them as his hands span Tony’s ass. Squeezing and whispering, Steve answers, “No. You’re beautiful and strong, so damn gorgeous. It took everything to keep my hands off of you.” He drops the grip of one hand to wrap Tony’s cock in his fist, starting a steady stroke. “One day, you were sitting down at the kitchen table, had soot or oil or something on your face. That day when you chased me to the elevator?”

“That long?” Tony asks, struck by the revelation and Steve’s deft hand.

“Dunno. Feels like forever,” Steve says, sounds like he’s either elsewhere or too lust-laden for articulation before taking Tony’s cock between his lips and over his tongue. He goes and goes, gets Tony gasping and his hips stuttering. 

“Steve. Babe, you feel...” Tony moans. A bevy of exaltations swamp Tony’s brain but under Steve’s unrelenting mouth, they lose their shades of definition and become wanting. Tony scrambles to get a grasp on whatever’s near; he holds onto the sure line of Steve’s shoulder and hopes the hard press into the muscle there speaks for itself.

His breath hitches when their gazes catch. Steve is looking up him, filled with Tony’s cock, and his apparent satisfaction with that crowds out the blue of his eyes. The sight hits Tony with an urgent ache, low and insistent, ushering out a bedrock-conceived groan. 

When Tony clasps the back of his neck in warning, Steve slips off of him with swollen, pink lips. Exertion colors him from his scalp to his heaving chest. It’d be incredibly flattering on any occasion but it’s stupendously so when taking into account Steve’s chemical makeup.

“God, but you’re pretty,” Tony breathes. He snatches Steve up and kisses him, thrilled by the how slick and malleable Steve’s mouth is. Tony’s new mission in life is to exhaust every variation of Steve’s kisses. 

Steve eases away, resting his forehead at Tony’s temple and nuzzling under his ear. And even so close, Tony can’t quite believe what he hears. 

“Will you fuck me?” Steve asks in a hush. His fingers are just as quiet where they’re scuffing Tony’s back, trailing just above his ass and then skating up his sides. 

And Tony won’t do him the disservice of questioning whether or not he’s sure. With his insides surely upended, Tony turns and nips Steve’s chin, collecting his mouth next. He likes how sweet and chaste this kiss is, soft with the warmth of home. He likes how the tender skip of Tony’s lips coaxes a pleased sound from Steve’s.

Tony eases away, his heart big with affection. He steals touches to Steve’s nose, eyelids, and cheekbones in the departure. He places a palm over the side Steve’s face carefully, stroking with his thumb. “Yes, we can do anything you want.”

Steve’s eyes gleam and don’t abandon Tony’s when he takes Tony’s hand, turns it over and bites at the palm. He laves it with his tongue before continuing, “Can I ride you? I’d love that. I’ve thought about it so much.”

Tony groans, hurts with it, because Steve merely asking for what he wants is enough to bring him to the edge, and if he keeps listening to Steve, he’ll be knocked right off of it without ever getting to the really fun parts. He drags Steve on to the bed, the two of them making it bounce when they topple on it in their ungainly enthusiasm. Tony’s elbow misses Steve’s head by the slimmest of margins when he lands in a sprawl over Steve’s golden-limbed glory.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tony murmurs absently, laughing with an amused Steve before cajoling hot kisses from him. He recedes down under Steve’s jaw and sweeps his throat with a procession of near-kisses, brushing and licking over his nipples. Tugging at them with his teeth, Tony is rewarded with Steve’s bright and hooked cry. 

“Tony, that’s—oh,” Steve moans. His body rolls fluidly under the attention, ribs rippling under the wet heat Tony stripes down the line of Steve’s stomach. He thrusts shallowly, seeking. “Please, please, you gotta.”

“I’ll take care of you,” Tony promises in the humidity of Steve’s pelvis and his crotch that’s dampened with sweat. He dips his head and the tongues the heavy cock that curves away from Steve’s body toward the left, maps it from the base and follows the vein that leads to the head. He ignores the throb in his own in favor of tasting the precome that’s been dripping waxlike, dragging his tongue across the slit. “Fuck, love how wet for me you are, Steve.”

“Tony, you can’t,” Steve impresses, sounding strangled and tight. Tony peers up to see Steve’s nails are biting into Tony’s sheets, churning them with white-knuckled clutches.

Tony can feel the tension strung taut in Steve’s thighs, running one hand along the chords of muscle. To alleviate some of it, he swallows down half of Steve’s magnificent cock. Forseeing the arch of Steve’s back, he relaxes his jaw, opens the back of his throat, and flutters his tongue.

Sex-scratched and lovely, Steve rasps, “Tony, I’m. Oh, for _guh_...Tony, you should—”

Which is nice but a no-go because Tony can’t imagine much better than Steve falling apart right the fuck now.

Unrelenting, Tony sucks hard around the hot, thick length, gag reflex long forgotten as he inches down further. He makes encouraging noises around Steve’s cock, and when Steve comes, Tony greedily devours everything.

He swipes what’s leaked to the corner of his mouth, sucks it from the inner bend of his thumb and likes that Steve watches. He likes it even better that Steve hales him up, tracking after his own taste that coats the roof of Tony’s mouth, the space between his teeth and cheek.

“You’re pure trouble, aren’t you?” Tony asks, breathless when they seperate. “I should know. Connoisseur speaking here.”

“Well you don’t have a monopoly on that,” Steve counters, smirking. His hair sticks up in tufts and there’s no saving it at all, sweat clings to his crown and shines between his eyes. Tony is helplessly charmed.

“You have too many jokes for a man who just had, from what I could comprehend, an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, astronomical-charting—”

Steve swooping in and plundering his mouth once more cuts Tony off.

“Let’s see how you do, smooth-talker,” Steve says, humming and suggestive. His smile pulls like taffy, and then he’s nipping at a tendon in Tony’s neck. And all of that combined is evidently a shot to Tony’s cock, making it jump.

And yeah, Tony isn’t going to last much longer. He kind of feels like it’s good luck he’s made it this far. He practically vaults off the bed, in search of supplies. At his nightstand, he considers its contents.

Lube, of course. But.

“Do you have a preference?” Tony asks, holding up his box of condoms and shaking them. And even when you’re Tony Stark, this part is never not awkward. “Um, last I got tested, I didn’t have anything and everything since then has been wrapped up, so. I know that some don’t like mess and I know that you’re like a Fort Knox to—know what? I’m gonna stop right there.” 

Uneasily, but meeting Tony’s eyes, Steve tells him, “There’s only been a few and that—no one was ever interested. Which is fine, I don’t think they really understood, and it wasn’t ever intended to go anywhere. Would never blame them for wanting to be safe about that. But—,” stronger and plainly, he says, “I always feel safe with you.” 

“I’m okay with not,” Tony manages, seconds late and rough around the fierce love and need to protect brimming under his skin. He nods. “You?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, also nodding.

So Tony puts the condoms back and just makes with the lube. On his haunches between Steve’s legs, Tony dribbles it over his fingers until they’re slick. Once satisfied, he carefully presses one digit inside Steve who groans in return, his hand clamping down on Tony’s forearm when the finger goes crooked.

Tony stops immediately, and Steve then takes even more immediate offense to that.

“Don’t stop,” Steve growls and grinds. “We’re good. It just feels so, with _you_ —don’t stop, Tony. ”

So Tony doesn’t. After adding another finger, Tony stretches him with twisted angles and tiny little punches. He’s caught between watching his knuckles disappear into the clenching tight of Steve and watching the pleasure pretty up Steve’s face, who’s wanton and shameless. If time could actually stand still, Tony thinks he’d keep this part forever, tuck it away where it can’t wither.

“Need you, Tony,” Steve begs, and Tony’s whole life feels pieced together at the words. No, he’d keep this instead.

He’d keep it alongside the sight of Steve straddling Tony, guiding Tony’s cock into him and sinking down with a slack mouth until he’s flush on Tony’s hips. Into the echelons, Tony would etch the peace on Steve’s brow when he starts rolling into slow thrusts like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. He would permanently catalogue the ratcheting hitches in Steve’s exhales when Tony starts driving up into him, how Steve falls forward into Tony’s embrace after a particularly sharp thrust, reaching for Tony’s hand and twining their fingers.

The hand not locked with Steve’s wanders sweat-slicked skin and touches where they’re joined. The skid of Tony’s blunt nail startles Steve into another orgasm, stuttering hips and curses. Steve flies apart and the kiss he lays over Tony’s sternum takes Tony with him.

*

“I’m getting itchy.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Yes—however, not that. Or whatever your imagination conjured up outside of that. With the last few leads on Barnes turning up cold and having not come up with anything in weeks, I was thinking. Steve, we won’t stop looking. We _won’t_. However I do think that we could put some of our efforts elsewhere in the meantime.”

“Okay. I’m listening. What are you thinking?”

“Right. So JARVIS has been keeping an eye on everything SHIELD since it went belly-up. There wasn’t much to write home about at first, fringe players, mostly, that local law enforcement had a handle on, but now, dangerous weapons are starting to pop-up in regions that definitely shouldn’t have access to the grade of technology that they do, which means that trinkets the Chitauri left behind are being sold to major hitters.”

“Fury’d been afraid of that. Hydra’s attempting to resurrect itself—again.”

“Well it never really died, Steve. That’s the point. It’s always been underground and waiting to weed up. It needs to be yanked out by the roots this time around. What I’m saying is that we take care of it, once and for all. Get the band back together and get this done. Find their outposts, find their bases. I know how important Bucky is to you—”

“So is this, Tony. All of those new suits you’ve been building in the workshop?”

“Iron Legion. Just waiting for your call, Cap.”

“Alright. We’ll start in the morning, pull intel and contact everyone. Ugh, if we can reach everyone.”

“Oh, I don’t foresee that being a major issue.”

“Fantastic. You’re fantastic. You’ll handle it in the morning, though, right? Sleep now? Unless you do have something else to tell me.”

“Shut up.”

“ _Itchy_. For pete’s sake.”

“I want to poke something?”

“...that I can get on board with.”

*

A party celebrating the vanquishment of Hydra clears out, and only the Avengers remain.

Surrounded by his motley cast of teammates, the place feels full. Nursing a cold beer and pressed against Steve’s warm side, Tony really couldn’t ask for more. That is, until Thor rests his hammer in the middle of the coffee table and Tony can’t deny that he’s always wanted a chance at that.

And because everyone else is in various states of inebriation, they go with it.

To his left, Tony confers with Rhodey on the ethics of using the armor. Tony thinks it should be permissible. Rhodey is willing to concur on one condition: that he also gets to use War Machine. 

“This is moot anyway,” Rhodey says. He tips his half-finished beer to Tony’s right. “Your boy’s got it.”

“That vernacular is so not on, but yeah, word to the wise, I wouldn’t put my money there,” Tony says in an obvious stage-whisper, scoffing. He then smirks because Steve’s head whips around from his conversation with Cho and Barton, super-hearing activated. Riling up a drunk Steve is too easy, it’s almost not even worth trying, but nonetheless, it’s goddamn entertaining.

“Wait a second.” Steve comes in, pouting but keeping his arm looped around Tony’s back. He’s got that slur that yields to his accent, rough and percussive. Combined with the navy shirt and spice of his cologne, it’s criminal. “Are you rooting against me?”

“Sweetheart, _love_ , two missions ago, a tank slipped out of your hand and took out a small grove,” Tony reminds him. “Plus it’s not so much that I’m rooting against you but that I am unequivocally cheering for me.”

Rhodey cracks up, and that’s so great that it makes Tony smirk even harder. Tony’s so happy he’s here.

“I was holding three, two-hundred pound men with the other hand, Tony,” Steve argues and the pout somehow deepens. 

“Aw, look at you,” Tony coos fondly, and he indulges in the urge to fan his fingers on Steve’s jaw, thumb a bit of stubble that his razor missed under his ear. He kisses him properly and then gives his chest a sympathetic pat. “Watch and weep, Cap.”

The armor doesn’t work. Rhodey’s always had good judgement, and Tony isn’t too surprised with the sequence of events. Last, but certainly not least, Steve goes and is the one to lift the fucking hammer. 

Initially, Mjolnir barely budges, just whines in protest and rattles glassware and takeout boxes alike, but it sparks a change in Steve’s eyes. Steve respects the challenge and meets it with conviction, with a gravity and intent that nearly feels intimate. He pulls again, too hard and causing him to stagger backward, but it’s with the hammer in hand. For a moment his face is soft with humility and then it perks into an astonished and unbridled joy, shoulders quavering in disbelieving laughter when he turns his attention to Tony amongst the hoots and hollers. He mouths _holy shit_ ; it’s hysterical and beautiful. 

_Language_ is on tip of Tony’s tongue but he just smiles back because no, Tony won’t be ruling Asgard in the near future but that’s alright. He’s got it pretty good here.

**fin**


End file.
